On January 12, 2014, Michael Hilzik writes in the Los Angeles Times:
 The worst flaw in any diagnosis of anti-poverty policy that focuses on the amount of money spent is that it treats poverty as a phase, rather than as a condition. Above, homeless people prepare to camp along the street in downtown L.A. (Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times / February 27, 2013) |
Fifty years ago Wednesday, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered what may have been the last genuinely uplifting State of the Union speech we’ve had.
“This administration, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America,” he said. “We shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on Earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.”
Since LBJ’s launch of the War on Poverty, the effort has become a whipping boy on the right and even the left. President Reagan’s judgment from 1986 seems to have won the battle for the most repeated crack: “In 1964 the famous War on Poverty was declared and a funny thing happened … I guess you could say, poverty won the war.”
The reason plainly is that the nation’s anti-poverty and anti-recession programs haven’t been fully up to the task of combating the effects of long-term unemployment or the systematic redirection of income from the working class to the shareholding class — income inequality.
The worst flaw in any diagnosis of anti-poverty policy that focuses on the amount of money spent is that it treats poverty as a phase rather than as a condition. Enhancements to income are essential parts of any relief program, but as LBJ perceived, social mobility is the key. Poverty may yet win the war, proving Reagan right; but if that happens it’s because American society has handed over victory by default.
Programs addressing that factor have really taken it in the gut during this last recession. The sequester, which still remains in effect, has hollowed out Head Start programs across the country and deprived thousands of families of adequate public housing. Turning control of anti-poverty programs to the states may satisfy some fantasy of grass-roots political resourcefulness, but when the states face budget crunches they invariably hack away at public education, public housing, public health.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140112,0,1032268.column#ixzz2qIzpLXx1
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140112,0,1032268.column#ixzz2qIzQyosV
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140112,0,1032268.column#ixzz2qIxyFQP4
